Obama Choice of 66% of Black Voters

Hillary Clinton’s lead over Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has narrowed, dropping to 9 percentage points from a 24-point lead in early December, a new Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll reveals.

On the Republican side, John McCain tops the field — and former front-runner Rudy Giuliani has plummeted to fourth place.

The poll also found that Clinton and Obama would both trounce every GOP candidate except McCain, who ties the two Democrats.

Among the findings of the poll of 1,541 registered voters, conducted from Jan. 18 to Jan. 22:

Clinton drew 42 percent of the vote, Obama 33 percent, and John Edwards 11 percent. If Edwards dropped out of the race, more of his current backers would support Clinton than Obama.

Three out of five respondents said they would like Clinton or Obama, if nominated, to choose the other as a running mate.

Three out of four Democratic voters said they are satisfied with the field, compared to just over half of Republicans.

Obama was the choice of 66 percent of black voters, while Hillary got 18 percent of the black vote.

McCain got 22 percent of the vote from Republican respondents, up from 11 percent in a December poll. Mike Huckabee got 18 percent of the votes, and Mitt Romney garnered 17 percent.

Giuliani received 12 percent of the votes, a steep drop from the 23 percent he got in December and the 32 percent he received in an October poll, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In a hypothetical general election matchup, Clinton and Obama would both beat Huckabee, Romney or Giuliani by a margin of at least 10 percentage points, the poll showed. Obama and McCain were in a virtual tie, while Clinton polled 4 points better than McCain, within the margin of error for the question.

Poll director Susan Pinkus said: “McCain is the only Republican at this point who would give Clinton or Obama a run for their money.”